know | Future

CreativePro has a lengthy and detailed review of the seventh incarnation of Quark Xpress which is currently in wide public beta test. They find much to like about the new version but question whether the change of emphasis from layouts to projects will cause a lot of disruption. The product looks different enough that you may be tempted to trade its learning curve for Adobe InDesign’s.

The product has only been released in PowerPC form (as well as Windows) but a universal binary is promised for the end of January. The target release date is March 31st. I recommend that you participate in the beta though they will have to come up with something pretty spectacular to stay the exodus to InDesign.

The New York Times reports that carriers are just raring to suck up all that high speed bandwidth you just got on your phone with video ads. Cell phone carriers in the past have been leery of infuriating their customers with advertising, but the confluence of data rates high enough to credibly do video, almost universal gps capabilities on newer handsets and the explosion of video-on-small-screens a la iPod has just proved to be too much for them to resist. The plan is to offer opt-in for the incredibly short three second ads. Leading the charge is newcomer ESPN Mobile which has already inked deals with Visa, Nike and Hilton Hotels. Analysts are breathlessly predicting a $1.2B market by 2009.

It will be interesting to see what agencies come up for a three second spot…

Mediapost reports today on a new Internet based startup Ad agency, Spot Runner. The agency allows small local businesses to run ads in their local broadcast and cable market(s) for as little as $500 including customization with logo, tags and even custom voiceover of their selection of canned spots. Go check it out, it is very cleverly put together though the canned footage is somewhat uneven.

His Steveness wowed the faithful yet again, but this time even the most jaded PC loyalist may have reason to switch, if not to the OS, at least to the hardware. The new Macbook Pro is relatively unchanged from the latest gen titanium PowerBook except for the processor inside and the clever MagSafe power connector. Performance though is hugely increased by the Intel dual core processor inside: the benchmarks claim as much as a 4x advantage to the MacBook Pro. What it manages in real world terms is yet to be seen as I never trust performance specs and rather prefer a real world application test. It is also unclear as of this writing as to whether the machines will boot Windows XP though Apple has gone as far as to admit that they did not do anything to prevent booting other OSs. This is very significant as the machines will theoretically boot OSX, Windows and Linux, making them the most versatile machines on the market. It also remains to be seen whether somebody will come up with a way to seamlessly run windows apps inside OSX without a reboot, just like you OS9 classic apps.

I did a quick comparo with a similarly spec’ed Dell box (a D810); the pricing is quite competitive and the Apple box is lighter by almost two pounds. Throw in the styling of the mac and unique touches like the built in isight camera and backlit keyboard and the MacBook Pro is a clear winner in my eyes.

For my IT readers, I would strongly recommend that you order at least one of the MacBooks for evaluation. It would be wtrth the differential between a standard $1,500 wintel laptop and the new MacBook Pro to have a truly standard and universal laptop across platforms. Order today though or expect months of wait, this is sure to be a hot seller.

Robert X. Cringely speculated ahead of Google’s CES keynote that they would announce this very capability. As it turns out, they didn’t though they did announce an online video store. However, you owe it to yourself to read his column as I believe he makes a very strong case for this hapening in the near future. And I am not just saying that because I had already said the same thing here back in October

Premium cable channel Starz announced today ahead of CES that it will begin offering a subscription based service called Vongo that will allow users unlimited access to their current movie roster for viewing on devices supporting Microsoft’s media software. For $10 smackers a month you will be able to download movies to three devices as well as be able to stream a live feed off the Starz channel. This on the heels of further announcements from Disney that they are expanding the content they are offering on iTunes to include ESPN and ABC sports. It seems that we will be reaching a tipping point soon pushing download content to the mainstream as surely many more announcements like this will surface this week at CES. If you are not thinking about what this means to your clients, this may be a good time to start.

At the risk of making it seem like all I talk about here is DVRs, I have to bring to your attention a news item from Media News Daily about a new report issued by Ipsos in conjuncton with the Associated Press that pegs DVR penetration at 25%. They also report that 72% of those that have the DVR use it. Impressive numbers if they are representative